Take care of your body - stay on the course!

By, Scott Szymoniak

Take care of your most important piece of golf equipment…your body!

Anyone who plays golf strives to make efficient, fluid swings, but very few are able to do it. Some have improperly fit golf clubs, while others have poor technique - both of these probelms can hamper swing dynamics. However, the most common road block we see with players struggling to get better lies is the ability of their bodies to move freely without making compensations. A regular stretching routine is one vital component to maintaining a healthy golf body and optimum range of motion.

In order to stretch effectively, you must be able to isolate the area to be stretched as well as hold the position long enough. Often it is difficult to do this on your own. An excellent way to ensure your body is ready for play is through the Golf Performance Massage – a product by Spa Sydell offered exclusively to Canongate members. In a 60-minute session you experience a combination of massage techniques integrated with active stretching of body parts that are vital to producing good golf swings. This unique combination releases the tension in your body, allowing the stretch to be much more effective. Having personally experienced this, I can attest to the results – my range of motion improved dramatically after just one session. That in turn equated to another six yards off the tee!

Spa Sydell, a Canongate Access Advantage partner, has locations all over metro-Atlanta. Call them to set up your Golf Performance Massage today – it is one of the easiest things you can do to improve your golf game…and your health!

Play Well!

Spa Sydell has introduced “Golf Performance Massage” packages
exclusively for Canongate Golf Clubs’ members. This hour-long
sport-specific massage session is $85. For more information, or to make an appointment, please call 404-255-7727 or visit www.spasydell.com.

Golf Instruction - Game Management 5

Friday’s Tip for The Management of Your Golf Game

Keep your stats! Get into the habit of keeping up with all of your statistics
• Fairways
• Greens
• Putts
• Up & Down Percentages

Tournament stats are especially important. These statistics will help you discover the patterns that exist in your game. It will provide you with info about what you do well and what can be improved. You will be able to design your plan in such a way that you can maintain your strengths and build upon your weaknesses.

Some players develop a personal form to keep track of this information, while others use computer programs especially designed for this reason. Top performers understand the importance of this data and use it to guide their practices and improve their performance and scores.

Golf Instruction - Game Management #4

Thursday’s Tip for The Management of Your Golf Game

Develop a game plan! We have all heard the old saying, “Successful people plan their work, and work their plan.” It’s true in golf as well. Golfers can use this saying to improve their performance on the course. In preparation for a tournament or a competitive round, top performers always develop a game plan for the event and the course that they will be playing. The purpose of the game plan is to allow the player to do three things:

1. Play toward his/her strengths
2. Play away from his/her weaknesses
3. Base the majority of play on his/her high percentage shots – see Tuesday’s post for a refresher on percentage shots.

As a pro practices and prepares for an event, they will gear their practice around their game plan and work on improving the things that will be tested in the competition Recreational players can also benefit by using this approach. Know about the course you are playing, know your strengths and weaknesses, utilize your strong shots and try to avoid those at which you have a low percentage chance of making!

Golf Instruction - Managing Your Game #3

Wednesday's Tip for Managing Your Golf Game
Control your focus – To play to the best of your ability, you must develop the ability to control your focus in the competitive environment. In many instances poor performance is a result of a golfer’s inability to control and maintain his or her focus. Keep in mind that focus and effort are not the same. Focus is controlling and directing your attention, while trying is controlling and directing your effort. Simply try to narrow the scope of your attention prior to and during the execution of the shot at hand and widening your focus between shots. The narrowing of your focus during the presentation and execution phases of the shotmaking process is commonly referred to as a “routine”. This routine is designed to direct your attention into the present task at hand. For most of the top players, the routine or process lasts approximately 30 seconds, start to finish.

• If a golfer shoots a 72 – game time during a round is 36 minutes
• If a golfer shoots a 72 – remaining time serves as a “time out”
• Top performers are able to narrow their focus for those 36 minutes and widen their focus for the remaining 3 to 3.5 hours.

REMEMBER – Manage your game time and your time outs for a successful round!

Golf Instruction - Managing your Golf Game

Tuesday's Tip for The Management of Your Golf Game

Choose high percentage shots – poor golf performance is generally a matter of choosing too many low percentage shots. How do you determine what you should be attempting? It’s easy. Just ask yourself “If I hit 10 shots from here, how many times could I pull it off?” Good golfers understand that importance of choosing high percentage shots.
a. High Percentage 7-10 made out of 10
b. Medium Percentage 4-6 made out of 10
c. Low Percentage 0-3 made out of 10

Golf Management

Week Long Semi-Series on The Management of Your Golf Game

By Kevin Kirk
Senior Director of Instruction
The Woodlands Performance Center

In an attempt to improve our performance in golf, competitive golfers do many things. We work on our golf swings, our short games, specialty shots and mental games, conditioning, nutrition, and equipment, among other things. As the weather begins to warm and you get ready to begin working on your game again this year, pencil in some time to work on your golf course management skills. There are five main steps that will allow you to improve your personal management of your golf game. Read on to learn the basics of this process!

Monday’s Tip for The Management of Your Golf Game

1. Know your game – poor performance can be attributed to now knowing your strengths and weaknesses on the course. Can you answer the following questions about your personal golf game?
a. How far can you hit each club (realistically)?
b. What are the strengths in your game?
c. What are the weaknesses in your game?
d. What are your tendencies (when playing well, when playing poorly, in competition, under pressure, etc)
e. How do you prepare for an event?

Stay tuned this week for more tips on managing your game!

Canongate Junior Honored with GSGA Player of the Year Award

photo courtesy of GSGA

Canongate Golf Clubs Member and Junior Tour Participant, Mariah Stackhouse, has been honored with the GSGA Women's Player of the Year Award, as well as being honored as the Girls' Player of the Year. For the first time in history, Mariah has become the only golfer to win two GSGA Player of the Year categories in the same year.

In 2008, Stackhouse successfully defended two titles she won the previous season, the Georgia Women’s Match Play Championship and the Georgia Girls’ Championship. At the Women’s Match Play, she faced Erin Packer in the final for the second-straight year, and won 3 and 2. She captured the Girls’ title with a five-stroke victory at Marietta Country Club, posting the only sub-par round of the tournament on the final day.

The dramatic highlight of Stackhouse’s season came at the Georgia Women’s Golf Association (GWGA) Amateur Championship, where she found herself tied with Coble after 54 holes of regulation after trailing by two shots with two holes to play. Stackhouse was vying to become the youngest champion in the 79-year history of the event, while Coble was looking to secure a record-tying sixth title. After parring both 17 and 18 to force extra holes, Stackhouse then won the three-hole aggregate playoff with three straight pars.

Stackhouse also earned points in the Girls’ Player of the Year race for advancing to the third round of the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at The Hartford (Conn.) Golf Club.



2008 Players of the Year Final Points Standings Top Five
(Complete final standings available at www.gsga.org)

Women's Player of the Year
Mariah Stackhouse, Riverdale 1,000
Laura Coble, Augusta 900
Tess Fordham, Metter 475
Kendall Wright, Suwanee 450
Lauren Darnell, Gainesville 450



Girls' Player of the Year
Mariah Stackhouse, Riverdale 1,250
Kendall Wright, Suwanee 650
Anna Leigh Keith, Moultrie 350
Alina Lee, Athens 300
Amira Alexander, Alpharetta 250
Kathryn Fowler, Americus 250

Who's Playing in the Shell Houston Open?

Many of the top golfers have already committed to play in the Shell Houston Open, to be held at Redstone Golf Club Tournament Course March 30-April 5. The tournament has been held at Redstone since 2003 when it was relocated from TPC at The Woodlands, now known as Canongate at The Woodlands - Panther Trail Course. Many Pros plan to treat the tournament as a warm-up for the Masters which will be held the following week at Augusta National.

Big names that have committed to playing so far -

• Ernie Els, ranked 13 in the world rankings
• Rory McIlroy, 19 year old from N. Ireland...spoken about as the next "Tiger", currently ranked 16th in the world rankings.
• Alvaro Quiros, 26th in world rankings

With the tournament still a couple of months away, it looks like it should be an entertaining event with plenty of golfers to watch. As with so many other tournament, the Shell Houston Open is still looking for volunteers for the event. For more information about volunteering, click here.

The Shell Houston Open is one of the premier golf events in Texas, with a purse over $5 million. 2009 is shaping up to be one of the most competitive years yet.

Canongate Golf on Facebook

Canongate Golf has entered the realm of Facebook!

We would like to encourage all of our members to become fans of Canongate on Facebook, as we will soon begin making special offers for our fans.

To become a Facebook Fan of Canongate, simply click on the link below and join (if you haven't) then search for "Canongate Golf" in the browser bar and "Become a Fan" after you find the page!

We look forward to seeing you soon and distributing special information and offers to all of our Facebook Fans.